They are four plans, one each from the Phillies, Flyers, Sixers and Eagles, franchises that have combined to win one championship in 30 years and none in the last six. All are influenced by the nuances of their league’s salary restraints. All are different. All intrigue.

Should a franchise smash everything down to dirt and try to rebuild over years, the way Sam Hinkie is trying to remake the Sixers? Or should an organization hang onto former stars long after their most practical usefulness, the way David Montgomery and Ruben Amaro have done with the Phillies?

Should a franchise never retreat on a championship-now mission, which is the way Ed Snider has and always will run the Flyers, even if newer general manager Ron Hextall may campaign for a breath or two of patience? Or should a club hire a forward-thinking coach, to try to catch a trend and cash in early, the way the Eagles have with Chip Kelly?

All are thinking-man approaches, with the final accounting to be available only when each either succeeds or crashes. Until then, there will be hunches and preferences and forecasts. Here, then, is one one-through-four handicap of a multi-style race.

Advertisement

1. The Flyers always have had the more sensible plan for success, which is why they have played in the Stanley Cup Final eight times since 1974. Nor is it quite as rigid as their critics will scream. Indeed, it seeks the proper balance between what the Sixers and the Phillies are trying.

Unlike the Sixers, the Flyers would sooner disband the franchise than subject their generations of devoted fans to anything that involves a willingness to accept a 26-game losing streak. Yet unlike the Phillies, they will change … and change, and change and change.

The Flyers change players, coaches and on-ice systems. They just changed general managers. While they tend to embrace their own, they will fire, say, Bill Barber, or hire a winning coach from another system, as they did with Peter Laviolette.

They always seek to be good now, not later. They will eat salary if necessary, overspend if it helps to land an important player … and generally make the playoffs. They should never change.

• Chances of a championship within five years: High.

2. Under Jeffrey Lurie, the Eagles have tilted toward a Flyer-ly approach, usually getting involved with the more appealing free agents and only occasionally conceding to a quick rebuilding. Their habit of juggling the salary cap to provide room to do something later, not now, has consistently left them short. But they are anything but casual about seeking a Lombardi Trophy.

Their latest twist is to try Kelly, whose innovative offense worked at the University of Oregon. (Or was it whatever he had been doing that had left the Ducks on probation?) Either way, Kelly brings self-assuredness in his approach, and he is 1-for-1 in division championships.

• Chances of a championship within five years: Good.

3. The Sixers, who couldn’t have done it any other way without a riot, have been transparent about their plan, which is to shed just about every mid-career player with talent, acquire premium draft choices, accept expiring contracts to free even more space and take chances on injured but highly skilled young players.

It’s the most radical plan, requiring fans to endure chronically horrible basketball. Will it work? Well, to repeat, all that it has produced so far is chronically horrible basketball.

• Chances of a championship within five years: Marginal.

4. The Phillies, too, have been clear in their recent agenda, with Montgomery repeatedly chanting his belief that his customers prefer to watch familiar players. The Phillies are familiar, all right. But they are becoming too familiar with failure, too.

Recently, Amaro has hinted of changes. But the only two times the Phillies have succeeded in their history, it was because they’d allowed their farm system to yield a championship nucleus. And their farm system is believed dry.

• Chances of a championship within five years: None.

So if nothing else, Philadelphia fans are being treated to four different solutions to a problem. It is a battle of ideas worth watching, even without any guarantees.